TNA wrestling rebrands as GFW, eyes global expansion

In a move designed to distance itself from the financial struggles and legal drama that hung over its brand, Anthem Sports announced last week it has purchased Nashville-based Global Force Wrestling.

The move signals the end of TNA, the professional wrestling league that once served as home to legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair and as a launching pad for future stars A.J. Styles and Samoa Joe.

Anthem Sports, the Canadian company that also owns the Fight Network, will rebrand its wrestling league as GFW and Nashville native Jeff Jarrett will helm the creative aspects of the promotion. Its staple weekly program on Pop TV will continue to be called “Impact.”

The rebranding comes almost 15 years to the day that Jarrett and his father Jerry Jarrett launched TNA. The wrestling promotion ended up under the control of Dixie Carter, endured a turnstile of cable television partners and garnered negative headlines for unpaid bills, unpaid talent and state tax liens.

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The troubles culminated in a lawsuit last fall when rock-and-roll legend Billy Corgan, who was hired to help lead the creative direction of TNA, sued Carter and the company. When the dust settled, Anthem Sports, which distributed a portion of its content, emerged as the new owner and operator of the wrestling promotion

Momentum for new GFW

The new GFW arrives on the professional wrestling scene with some momentum.

The company has seen a drastic spike in its social media reach in recent months following a tour through India. Ratings for its weekly “Impact!” program are on the uptick.

Broadcast and streaming deals are in the works both in India and the United Kingdom. And the legal battle that played out dramatically in a Nashville courtroom last year has seemingly been put to rest.

Jarrett and Anthem Executive Vice President Ed Nordholm are banking on strengthened international partnerships, a growing digital presence and revamped roster buoying GFW as an alternative to the unquestioned professional wrestling behemoth, the WWE.

The company’s annual event “Slammiversary” takes place on Sunday, which the new GFW views as a re-launch of its pay per view business.

"We're a global brand," Jarrett said of the rebranding. "We have partnerships in Mexico, Japan, other places. Collectively coming together, we've combined forces and basically the rebrand final touches happen (on Sunday) at 'Slammiversary.'"

TNA becomes GFW, keeps Nashville headquarters

In 2013, Jarrett, a star wrestler who had a successful run in the WWE in the 1990s, tried to buy control of TNA from Carter and her family. That bid failed and Jarrett left the company and he decided to launch GFW instead.

Along with his business partner and wife Karen Jarrett, he pursued television partnerships for GFW and created a tour of minor league baseball stadiums, but the promotion never took off.

In the meantime, TNA had dramatic problems that were widely reported by professional wrestling websites and mainstream media. Those issues included loans given by Anthem Sports to keep the company afloat in 2016. Corgan also lent the company money and used those loan agreements as the basis for his lawsuit that also sought to wrestle away control of TNA.

But the court sided with Carter and Anthem came out of the legal wrangling as the majority owner.

► More:Billy Corgan: TNA savior or loan shark?

“They started out as a very small lender,” Jarrett said. “Then, as 2016 progressed, it became more and more apparent that if the organization was going to be saved, they were going to have to step in. They stepped in and I’m very thankful they did because we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about celebrating the 15-year anniversary of the organization.”

Nordholm said that once the wrestling company fell into Anthem’s hands, he began familiarizing himself with TNA by meeting with an array of stakeholders over the years.

“Amongst those, somebody set me up with Jeff,” Nordholm said, recalling meeting Jarrett in a private room at Nashville restaurant Pinewood Social. “It started off as, ‘Will you talk to me and give me some perspective on the show?’ We had lunch, we chatted. We ended up with a good rapport.”

Nordholm, who is a mergers and acquisitions attorney by trade, said Anthem needed an executive with a background in wrestling to helm the creative side of the company.

“We needed a wrestling guy,” he said.

FW will be headquartered in Nashville at the Skyway Studios facility where it currently handles pre and post production work. "Impact" is recorded in Orlando.

New strategy focuses on digital growth, international partnerships

Jarrett said the first 100 days running the company were a whirlwind. The company had regular order of business issues, like putting together its budget, signing new in-ring talent, building a new creative team and revamping its website.

The promotion secured a broadcast partnership deal with SpikeTV in the U.K. Digital growth in the month of March spiked by 184 percent. Jarrett said YouTube views grew from 8 million monthly to 35 million monthly.

“We have 50 people on the roster and 35 weren’t there last year,” Nordholm said.

The new GFW completed a short tour of India that Nordholm and Jarrett are hoping leads to broadcast and digital distribution partnerships there.

► More:With GFW, Jarrett wrestling tradition continues

“In the aftermath, we had more visitors to our YouTube visitors from India than from the United States,” Nordholm said.

In both the U.K. and India, the goal is to export GFW content and to partner with local promotions to cultivate new content. In the U.K., talks have advanced with ITV Studios to contraction negotations, while in the India, the concept remains in the developmental phase, Jarrett said.

“One part of our international strategy is not just to take WWE-style ‘Impact’ and export it to other countries, but as well to more deeply penetrate those international markets in association with (wrestling) promotions that are centric to those markets,” Nordholm said. “The (international promotions) want to tap into our expertise to boost those shows, but also to in turn boost the GFW content.”

► More:WWE in negotiations to buy insolvent TNA wrestling, according to Billy Corgan lawsuit

The WWE was a trendsetter when it launched its subscription streaming service, the WWE Network, to house its archives and stream new programming.

GFW has a valuable video library with the legendary wrestlers who have passed through its roster over the years and the future stars who emerged. In addition to Hogan and Flair, Kurt Angle, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy were stars on TNA. Styles and Samoa Joe are two of the top WWE stars now.

Nordholm said the company is developing an on-demand streaming service as well to tap into its valuable library. Already, the company's YouTube channel is highly ranked in the sports category with just under 1 million subscribers.

The company has already launched an app with some of its library available. Nordholm said that will serve as the baseline for a new on-demand streaming app in North America.

"The objective is to make that our own video on-demand hub," Nordholm said.

Re-branding was necessary move

Nordholm said the company chose to rebrand for two reasons. The double meaning of the name "TNA" was a turnoff for some marketing partners. And the name was tainted because of the negative media coverage.

"When Anthem got involved we saw a rare opportunity to get involved with an asset that already had global distribution," Nordholm said. "It's a 3,500-hour library, broadcast in 120 countries, existing distribution contracts in India, Africa and now the United Kingdom.

"The timeline to take a ground zero promotion to that kind of penetration was 15 years. The work now is to fix some things."

Jarrett acknowledged that TNA had a two-pronged legacy. On one hand, the promotion successfully developed future stars and gained traction as the home to legends. But on the other hand, there were negative headlines surrounding the business operation.

"Perseverance," Jarrett said when asked to describe the company's legacy over its first 15 years. "Nobody said it would be easy. But when you really chart the road map of the business side of things, it was a challenge day in and day out. But in spite of those business challenges, I will say the brand persevered, the talent persevered.

"And when you look back on history, 2005 to 2015, the stars of today were created right under our watch - A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode, arguably the top freshest stars in the world today. I'm excited for this roster now. I'm excited to show the next A.J. Styles to the world."

Reach Nate Rau at 615-259-8094 and nrau@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter @tnnaterau.

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